


Ending doesn't sound (like the happiest around)

by a_sentimental_man



Series: Author’s Favorites [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Ghost Harry Potter, HP UnHappily Ever After Fest 2020, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24248614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sentimental_man/pseuds/a_sentimental_man
Summary: Harry dies in the Forbidden Forest. Now his soul is stuck; he is merely a ghost, having to watch as his friends and loved ones move on without him, living the lives he didn't get a chance to, and eventually, his name becoming but a distant memory.Avada kedavra.It wasironic, wasn't it, that the last words he expected to hear had merely only been the beginning?
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Series: Author’s Favorites [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788709
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37
Collections: HP UnHappily Ever After Fest 2020





	Ending doesn't sound (like the happiest around)

**Author's Note:**

> whew! this was an abolute ride, and also probably the best work i've done yet. i hope you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!
> 
> thank you for tom-riddleston-me on tumblr for betaing this!!

King's Cross was silent, a silence that seeped through your bones and made you shiver, whether in fear or despair, Harry couldn't guess. 

He should have been surprised to see the Headmaster of Hogwarts approaching him, all wide smiles and benevolence, too reminiscent of all the times Harry had gone up to his office, scared and alone, every time. 

But this time, _Dumbledore_ was approaching _him._ He was still alone. 

Harry couldn't help but look over at the shriveled creature that filled him with a sense of pity, even now, even after all this time. Tom Riddle never did have a chance to be whatever he wanted to be. Not really. Looking at him, Harry couldn't help but think that Destiny, more often than not, played way too big a part in it, some sort of cosmic joke that made everyone who they were, never veering from their path. 

_"You can't help, you know,"_ Dumbledore said. Harry nodded, feeling the same sense of resignation he felt when going to the Dursleys every summer; when he looked at Ron's family and realized he was never going to get that unconditional love that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were all too willing to give to their children; when he realized no-one understood what he had to do, what he had been forced to _become,_ no matter how hard they tried. 

They were both silent, for a long, thoughtful moment, Harry shivering and blinking against the train station that felt brighter and brighter by the minute. King's Cross had always been a source of comfort to him - the jostling parents and children; the cheerful steam train heralding his coming _home._

 _This_ was different - silent, eerie, with a sense of finality that Harry knew all too well. It was as if the entire station was holding its breath, unable to move until Harry made his own decision. 

"What do I do now, Headmaster?" Harry asked, hating how… _weary_ his voice sounded, the words ripped off from his thoughts no matter how much he wanted to avoid uttering them. 

Dumbledore hummed, eyes still twinkling despite it all. For one moment, Harry _hated_ him - so many had _died_ in this war, so many had lost their loved ones, and he had the audacity - 

"You could choose," Dumbledore said, ripping him from his thoughts. 

"I have to go back, don't I?"

"Or you could, let's say… board a train. Go… _on.”_

In the end, the choice to go back wasn't even a _choice._ He had too many loved ones, too much to live _for._

* * *

Waking up in the Forbidden Forest was… surreal. Harry had thought he would get his breath back, would be able to _feel_ again.

Yet, when he felt himself coming back into focus, it wasn't the ground that he felt, beneath his feet. 

It was simply… nothing. A lack of space, a lack of feeling, as if he was on anesthetic - a feeling he vaguely remembered from when Dudley had broken his arm and Petunia had taken him to the doctor when it became obvious that his magic wasn't going to be any use in healing his injury. 

He still remembered the numbness, the panicked feeling as he tried to do something - _anything -_ to his arm, and couldn't. 

It was like that, except _not -_ he was floating, floating, _floating._

And able to move. 

He opened his eyes, knowing what he was about to see before he opened them.

He was hovering over where his body lay, Voldemort and his followers looking unable to believe that one incantation, one that had failed spectacularly just 16 years ago, had been able to do its work _now._

Harry could see Hagrid, sobbing loudly as he mourned someone who had died too fast, too soon. Harry felt a pang go through him, _hating_ to cause his friends more suffering than was necessary. He was surprised to see that no matter how numb or… _floaty_ he felt, he still felt his emotions acutely; in fact, they now seemed more acute, fueled by the grief living inside of him. 

He heard Voldemort asking Narcissa to check if he was alive. 

(In another life, Narcissa would have checked, hope rising in her throat as she saw the slow drag of Harry's breathing and the quiet nod that said Draco was alive. But in _this_ life - Harry was really and truly dead, the cause of his death merely two words.) 

Harry felt himself drifting towards Hagrid, desperate to make himself known and get rid of the doubt in his mind. 

Harry had seen ghosts before, of course - he still remembered when what felt like an avalanche of ghosts had descended on them, way back in his first year at Hogwarts when he only knew that he was going to a castle to learn magic; to be a _wizard._

He had seen the silver, pearly sheen that surrounded them, the quality to them that everyone was afraid to question, the instinctive feeling that marked them as _other_ ; neither dead nor alive, something in between. 

Ghosts were _noticeable._

He had assumed that everyone was too preoccupied with observing Harry's cor- _body,_ to take much notice of a ghost, but as Harry approached Hagrid, putting his hand on Hagrid's shoulder and watching it pass through, waiting for the icy chill that would accompany it and cause anyone to look up - 

Hagrid kept weeping, sobs getting quieter and quieter by the minute. Harry, too horrified at his own discovery, couldn't even find it in himself to muster up any sympathy.

* * *

(In another life, as Hagrid approached Hogwarts with Harry's body in his arms, everyone would have thought him dead, except for one lone mother, too concerned for her son's life to think much about anything else. 

In another life, Harry would triumphantly emerge from beneath his Invisibility Cloak, to shouts and cheers and exultation, and defeat a wizard too stuck in his own hubris to see what was in front of his face.) 

In _this_ life - everyone _knew_ he was dead.

He barely resisted screaming, the tears hot on his face as he heard the anguished cries of Ron, Hermione, Ginny, even _McGonagall -_

No-one would hear him scream, anyway. 

At that, his composure broke, and Harry _screamed -_ a sound of grief and terror and pain and despair as he felt more helpless than he had ever felt in his life, not even when Sirius had fallen through the veil and all his hopes of a family had gone down the drain.

* * *

In the end, Voldemort _was_ defeated. 

(Yet, in another life, _Harry_ would have been the one to defeat him, to be hailed the savior of the Wizarding World.)

In _this_ world, Harry was the rallying cry that they all maintained to form a barrier around the Dark Lord, Harry's protection - the same one his mother had done 16 years ago - apparent in their actions. 

In the end, there were more casualties than in the other life. 

(There are endless dimensions, both interconnected yet independent of each other. We only know about two of them. 

So, in hindsight, _this_ one was much, much worse.) 

(Harry, who had no idea of this couldn't help but watch, unable to help himself from crying out as he saw the destruction he could have prevented, though he didn't know how.) 

It all wouldn't have happened without the Slytherins. The last Harry had known, McGonagall had ordered them all to be escorted out, but some, unwilling to be left out of the action, choosing to defend their _home,_ had arrived with vengeance in their hearts; child against parent, mentor against child. 

Statistically and _realistically,_ more Slytherin students were prone to having Death Eaters as their parents. This had not been so apparent to Harry until he, floating - _always floating_ \- had seen the bodies fall, one by one.

It was in that moment that he really _wished_ he had never returned at all; anything was better than seeing this utter _destruction,_ as they all tried to recover themselves after the loss they had faced, all stoic looks and brave faces that cracked around the edges.

Harry could see Ron and Hermione, clutching each other for dear life, Hermione sobbing into Ron's shoulder as the tears dripped down his own nose, landing without a sound on Hermione's clothes. 

_Hermione and Ron in each other's arms - that would have been great, before,_ Harry thought bitterly to himself, trying to get his thoughts in order. _It was still great, but -_

But. 

Harry could see Ginny tucked underneath an alcove with Neville and Luna, looking with unseeing eyes at the wreckage in front of her. Harry knew exactly how she felt; numb to the world, unable to belive _Hogwarts,_ which had meant so much to all of them, had been part of such violence. More than anything, Harry wanted to go to her, to hold her and pretend everything was right, if only for one moment. 

Even if it really, _really_ wasn't.

* * *

They put up a statue for Harry at Hogwarts, a boy who had given up his life for something far greater than himself. 

Harry knew he wasn't that noble; he just did what he had to do, for his _friends._

When they put it up, Harry could hear Ron and Hermione whispering to each other; a mirthful yet sad: "Harry would have _hated_ this." 

They were right - they had always been right - Harry _did._ He just didn't understand why none of the others who died weren't remembered - Fred and Tonks and Lupin and even _Zabini -_ too. 

He, more than anything, wanted to be _alive._ Or _dead._ Not this neverending limbo, where even thinking felt like a chore when there was no-one around to hear his thoughts. 

And he had tried. 

So many fucking times to _talk,_ to make himself _seen,_ but the only thing that happened was that whoever's attention he was trying to get, only got a vague sense of him. That nostalgic feeling of remembering a loved after they were gone - not the nostalgic feeling that made you scramble for a photo album to remember someone fondly - the numbness in your heart as you scrambled to your bed to keep the loneliness at bay, your soul aching with the need for companionship from a specific person that you're never going to get it from ever again. 

Needless to say, Harry stopped trying to attract anyone's attention after he'd driven Ron, Hermione, and Ginny to tears. In that order. 

He tried to leave them alone, for the most part. He wasn't part of their lives any longer, not really. 

(He still couldn't help seeing how Ginny cried herself to sleep every night, for _months_ after the Battle of Hogwarts. How Luna, who always seemed unbothered by anything, was unusually shaky and flinched at every harsh word she received. How Hermione threw herself into her work, her passion becoming her captor as she tried to ignore the past in the only way she knew.)

(How _Ron_ threw himself into Auror training - once his passion, becoming something he knew he had to do because _Harry_ wasn't there.) 

(That wasn't even counting _George, Mrs. Weasley, the Malfoy's -_ who had lost the son they had desperately hoped to save.) 

But Harry could see them regaining themselves too, bit by bit. Cracks in their faces replaced by china, sharper and colder around the edges with their experience, but still fragile, breakable _armor_. Still on their way to healing. 

No matter what, it was around those times that Harry wished he could be around them the most, in the most _literal_ sense; when Ginny laughed at something Luna said, her face lighting up more than it had in _months;_ when Ron and Hermione finally decided to acknowledge how much they had cared about each other after trying to willfully destroy their relationship; when George started smiling again. 

But never to make a joke, not really. It was more bitter, nostalgic, but Harry - and the rest of the Weasley family - were going to take whatever they could get. His true, real smile didn't come until much, _much_ later. 

Harry wished he could be there. But it was still - it was nice to see that they were moving on without him, even if he was stuck in this limbo that threatened to - 

Threatened to, what? It had already done the worst thing it could have done to Harry.

* * *

It was when Hermione and Ron got married that Harry really started thinking about it. Ron didn't have a best man - Harry could remember how Ron had said, _I don't want to have a best man that isn't Harry,_ as clear as the day he had first heard him say it. 

He wondered what would have happened if his eleven-year-old self knew what was going to happen, not even 6 years after Hagrid's revelation that _yer a wizard, Harry,_ something that had seemed marvelous to him before he knew what it truly cost. 

Would he have run away? Stayed at Privet Drive, never looked back? Or gone to Hogwarts anyway? 

Harry knew he would have gone anyway. 

If anything, he knew _his saving people thing,_ as Hermione so loved to call it, would have kicked in at hearing how many people depended on him, how many people took him to be their messiah or nemesis. 

(Or maybe he actually _would_ have run away. memories became hazy for him sometimes, his mind deciding what was important or unimportant and discarding them without thought. He didn't know if it was being a ghost or… time. not really.) 

The ceremony was a success - how could it not be, with Hermione organizing it with the excruciating care that only she could manage for the things she particularly cared about? 

(Harry knew there were many memories attached to that fondness, but all he could think about was _fourth year, house-elves_ before his mind came up with a blank.) 

But Harry had seen her biting her lips as she looked through the guest list, looking for a person that wasn't there. The tears that slipped down her face, unbidden. Harry remembered wanting to wipe them away, another one of those crystal clear memories that made him shake with grief. 

He _hated_ this. Hated that he was causing her pain, that they were all suffering because of _him._

This wasn't supposed to be the _end._ He was supposed to have more _time._ He was supposed to go on with his life, have a bunch of children and grandchildren to spoil. 

What had he done to _deserve this?_

(when he had heard the words _avada kedavra,_ he had thought that was the end.) 

(this was worse.)

* * *

Humanity had a truly unique capacity for enduring, for moving _on,_ Harry had noticed. It didn't come as a surprise to him; he remembered how the sharp pain of losing Sirius had faded, into something that resembled the rage he had felt in Dumbledore's office, but manageable. 

Harry didn't remember much of anything anymore. He still - he still remembered Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and everyone else, but while they had been sharp in his memory, able to recall without a moment's thought, they were now sluggish, taking an effort to wade through the muddy waters that were his memories. 

Harry wasn't wanted near them anymore, not really. They had all moved _on._ Harry couldn't blame them, felt glad for them, _happy_ for them, but. 

But.

He couldn't help but notice how his face became a distant memory to Ron and Hermione as they aged, both too occupied with their own lives, with taking care of their _children,_ to think much about him. 

He couldn't help but notice how Ginny had finally settled down with Luna, to her mother's combined relief and regret. Relief that she _was,_ and regret that it wasn't Harry. 

He couldn't help but - 

It was then that he had decided to _leave._ He wasn't wanted here, had never been. 

(Grief was a contrary thing. Harry, however much he would have denied it, was suffering his own grief, too. Coming to terms with the fact that no-one would ever be able to talk to him again - that he was truly _alone -_ was hard for him to bear.) 

As much as he wanted to be near his friends and family, it hurt too much, sometimes. 

He had been too hasty, not thinking where he was going, with no way to _know_ where he was going - 

When he had ended up in the middle of a forest, almost despite his own volition. 

(If Harry could have thought of that beyond blind panic, he would have realized that this wasn't unlike how Voldemort had fled Godric's Hollow, nearly sixty years ago.)

  
  


harry didn't realize - _couldn't_ realize, how him leaving affected everyone that he had surrounded himself with for _decades._ he didn't realize that it would cause them to forget about him, consider him as the person who defeated voldemort, no-one else. 

he didn't realize that the weasley children would stop calling him _uncle harry._

didn't realize that he would lose his capacity to think, to think of himself as anything other than someone who _merely existed -_ and didn't know why they did. 

but why would he realize? he had lost all capacity to think, after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are everything! please tell me what you think!  
> follow me on a href="https://a-sentimental-man.tumblr.com/">tumblr!


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